Major Research Tools

America: History and Life

Index
Time period covered: prehistory to present; publication coverage: 1910 to present.

Indexes journal articles, book reviews, and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada. Subjects include area studies, folklore, government, historiography, political science, popular culture, and urban history.


History Research Tools - U.S. (General)

Gateway

Skillman Library's links to major indexes and full-text collections covering multiple periods of United States history.


Indigenous Peoples of North America

Full-Text
Coverage: 16th C. - 1986

Large collection of primary sources split into two parts. Part I covers the documented history, sociology, and culture of Indigenous peoples across the US and Canada from the age of invasion and colonization through western settlement and forced displacement. Part II presents the record and sometimes-troubled history of the Indian Rights Association, an organization founded by White philanthropists that attempted to advocate for Indigenous rights.


LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940

Full-Text

Archive of primary sources on the LGBTQ community, including historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals, publications by and for lesbians and gays, and extensive coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis. Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950 to 1990.


Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History

Reference

In depth articles on major topics and trends relating to the study of American history. Written (and periodically updated) by scholars and peer-reviewed.


Other Suggested Research Tools

African American Newspapers, Series 1 & 2

Full-Text
Coverage: 1827-1998
Collection of digitized newspapers written by and for African-Americans from more than 35 states.

Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980

Full-Text

Digitized collection of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. Includes many titles published bilingually in Spanish and English.


History Matters

Full-Text, Gateway

Selective gateway to online U.S. history resources. Also includes first-person, primary documents and teaching resources. Searchable by keyword or topic.


Life Magazine Archive

Full-Text
Coverage: 1936-2000

Digitized cover-to-cover archive of Life, an important photojournalism magazine. Includes advertisements as well as articles.


Periodicals Index Online

Index

Electronic index to millions of articles published in over 6,000 periodicals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, covering more than 300 years.


Readers' Guide Retrospective

Index

Index of articles published in many different popular press magazines from 1890 through 1982.


Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice

Full-Text
Coverage: 1490-2007

Vast collection of documents relating to the global slave trade and subsequent abolition efforts and social justice movements. Documents include manuscripts, court records, maps, lists of slaves and ships' logs, books, statistics, and many types of images.


Specialized Collections

Activism and Radicalism

Full-Text

Collection of primary sources about 20th century radicalism in the United States from the Michigan State University Libraries. Includes resources related to the A.I.M., Asian Americans, birth control, the Black Panthers, the Hollywood Ten, the I.W.W., the Ku Klux Klan, the Rosenberg Case, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Scottsboro Boys, the S.D.S., and Wounded Knee.


Ad*Access

Visual Resource

Collection of over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Focus is on radio, television, transportation, beauty and hygiene, and World War II. See Emergence of Advertising in America for advertisements from 1850-1920.


African American Communities

Full-Text

Primary source material on race relations across social, political, cultural and religious arenas from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Focuses primarily on New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and North Carolina.


American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

Full-Text

Collection of newspapers published in prisons by incarcerated persons. Still a work-in-progress, but will eventually include hundreds of prison newspapers from across the country from penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women's-only institutions.


American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

Database of hundreds of prison newspapers from across the U.S. representing penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women's-only institutions. From Reveal Digital, a library crowdfunded open access initiative.


American West

Full-Text
Primary sources relating to westward expansion in America from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. From the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library. Can be searched jointly with the Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America collection.

Archives Unbound

Full-Text

Collection of specialized document archives. Most cover American history, but there are also collections covering Cuba (Feminism in Cuba), Mexico (Revolution in Mexico), India (Indian Army and Colonial Warfare on the Frontiers of India; The Hindu Conspiracy Cases), and Africa (Evangelism in Africa).


Asian Life in America, Series 1 and 2

Full-Text
Coverage: 18th Century - Present

Collection of nearly 19,000 newspapers covering the experience and impact of Asian Americans as recorded by the American and international news media -- majority of titles are U.S.-based.


Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movements

Full-Text

Digitized histories of civil rights activism by the everyday citizens of Black, Latine, Indigenous, and Asian American/Pacific Islander communities. Includes unofficial letters, correspondence, demonstration plan outlines, transportation logs and plans, meeting minutes, programs from worship services, and photographs. From Reveal Digital, a library crowdfunded open access initiative.


Civil Rights Digital Library

Gateway

Gateway to primary sources on the civil rights movement in the U.S., including films, oral histories, government documents, and editorial cartoons.


Civil Rights Documentation Project Oral History Transcripts

Full-Text

Collection of oral histories documenting the civil rights movement from the Tougaloo College Archives in Mississippi. Transcripts include biographical information and tables of contents.


Cold War Intelligence

Full-Text
Coverage: 1945-2008

Collection of over 2,300 "formerly classified U.S. government documents (most of them classified Top Secret or higher)" highlighting "the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its efforts to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War." Includes declassified memos, reports, studies, speeches, and more from the CIA, NARA, Library of Congress, National Archives of the United Kingdom, and several Presidential Libraries.


Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961

Full-Text
Collection of the most important papers generated by the British Foreign and Colonial Offices relating to North America. Covers the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America.

Digital National Security Archive

Full-Text

Collections of declassified documents covering US policy decisions around nuclear escalation and non-proliferation, the space race and military uses of space, and the Cuban missile crisis. Also includes collections of documents covering US foreign policy in relation to: Argentina; China; Colombia; Cuba; Mexico; South Africa; and North and South Korea.


Docs Teach: Primary Source Documents

Full-Text

Hundreds of primary source documents, photographs, drawings, maps, and other American history materials drawn from the holdings of the National Archives. Large collections on aviation and space, civil rights, Civil War, founders and founding documents, presidents, and World War II. Images can be used in papers and presentations.


Ebony Magazine Archive

Full-Text
1945-2014

Digitized full-text archive of Ebony, the seminal magazine with an African-American focus on culture, politics, civil rights, business, education, and fashion. Includes the iconic cover pages and advertisements in addition to full text articles.


Empire Online

Full-Text

Primary sources charting the rise and fall of empires, from the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others to decolonization in the second half of the twentieth century. Includes perspectives from colonizers as well as indigenous peoples from Africa, India and North America.


Foreign Relations of the United States

Full-Text

Collection of primary source documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, NSA, CIA, AID, foreign affairs agencies, and private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy. Selected volumes online. Complete print version available in Skillman Library (Call No. JX 233 .A3).


Free Speech Movement Archives

Full-Text

Collection of primary sources related to the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley (1964-65) and its aftermath. The site's resources are complemented by the online collection of the Bancroft Library's Free Speech Movement project.


Global Commodities

Data, Full-Text

Primary sources such as manuscripts/diaries, rare books, maps, paintings, advertisements, company records, etc., covering the global history of 15 major commodities: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, energy, opium, porcelain, silver & gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, wine & spirits. Also includes data on energy production, consumption, and reserves by country from 1965 to the present.


Independent Voices

Full-Text

Open Access collection of over 1,000 alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals from the 1960s-80s focused on the following series: Feminism; LGBTQ; Ethnicity and Race; Campus/community; GI Press; Small literary magazines; Right-wing press.


Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties

Full-Text
Compilation of U.S. treaties, laws, and executive orders pertaining to Indigenous peoples and tribes from 1778 to 1971.

Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America

Full-Text
Primary sources relating to indigenous history in the United States, Canada and Mexico from earliest contact with Europeans through the late twentieth century. From the Ayer Collection at the Newberry Library. Can be searched jointly with the American West collection.

Indigenous Newspapers in North America

Full-Text

Coverage: 1828-2016

Collection of 42 newspapers from Indigenous peoples of the US and Canada covering 1828-2016.

Internet Archive: Moving Image Archive

Gateway, Visual Resource

Gateway to a variety of film and video collections, including a collection of newsreels produced from 1929-1967 and short, ephemeral films from the Prelinger Archive documenting everyday life, culture, industry, and institutions in the United States from 1927 to 1987.


Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement: A Digital Archive

Full-Text
Primary documents on the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II created and collected as part of a research project initiated in 1942 at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jet Magazine Archive

Full-Text
Coverage: 1951-2014

Digitized archive of Jet, a weekly magazine covering art, news, politics and other social topics with an African-American focus.


Jewish Life in America

Full-Text
Coverage: c.1654-1954

Archive of documents highlighting the Jewish American culture, identity, and experiences, sourced from the American Jewish Historical Society.


Landmark Decisions: A Century of Change (1856-1955)

Full-Text

Full text of eleven decisions reflecting the Supreme Court's changing attitude toward race, from Scott v. Sanford to Brown v. Board of Education.


Living Room Candidate

Full-Text

Collection of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to present, organized by year and theme. Includes commentary, historical background, and election results. From the Museum of the Moving Image.


Medicine and Madison Avenue

Full-Text, Visual Resource

Images of 600+ health-related advertisements printed in newspapers and magazines from the 1910s to the 1950s. Ads illustrate the variety and evolution of marketing images for a wide range of products, such as: household cleaners, vitamins, pain relievers, and diet aids. Also includes historical documents (i.e. reports, editorials, radio scripts) that relate to the creation and influence of health-related advertisements.


Migration to New Worlds

Full-Text
Coverage: c. 1800-c. 1980

Major collection of oral histories, personal accounts, correspondence, shipping records, and many other primary sources covering the experience of migration from Europe and Asia to the United States, Canada, Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand.


National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Books

Full-Text

Collection of declassified United States government documents on foreign affairs and national security since World War II. Documents are grouped by topic or region of the world and cover nuclear history, U.S. intelligence and government secrecy, humanitarian interventions, the 9/11 attacks, and more.


Nixon Years, 1969-1974

Full-Text

Files from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office providing a British view of the Nixon presidency.


Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security

Full-Text

Primary document collections related to the development of NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, their mutual threat perceptions, and military plans.


Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975

Full-Text, Visual Resource

Images, video, and print material covering popular culture and lifestyle and major events of the time period such as the Vietnam War, the Space Race, the Civil Rights and Women's Liberation movements, and more.


Race Relations in America

Full-Text
Coverage: 1943-1970

Speeches (audio and transcripts), reports, photos, surveys, and other digitized material from the archival collection of the Race Relations Department of the American Missionary Association, whose members included Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many other Civil Rights pioneers.


Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War

Full-Text

Collection of oral histories documenting the wartime activities of Rutgers College alumni and Douglas College alumnae.


Social Security Online History Page

Full-Text

Collection of primary source material related to the Social Security Administration from the 1930s to the present. Includes a detailed chronology, reports and studies, speeches and articles, Presidential statements, legislative histories, oral histories, and public information materials.


Student Activism on Campus in 20th-century America

Full-Text

Collection of primary sources documenting the history of student organizing in the United States from the 20th and early 21st century. From Reveal Digital, a library crowdfunded open access initiative.


Trade Catalogues and the American Home

Full-Text
Coverage: 1850-1950

Digitized trade catalogues highlighting American consumerism, marketing, manufacturing, and home life in the 19th and 20th centuries.


Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History

Full-Text
Coverage: 1835 - 1976

Diaries and correspondence, plus some illustrations, describing the motivations for and experiences of travel by 19th & 20th century American women to destinations across the globe.


Wilson Center Digital Archive

Full-Text

Declassified historical materials from archives around the world covering the history of the late twentieth century, including topics such as the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Chernobyl nuclear accident.


Women's Issues and Identities

Full-Text

Archive of primary sources documenting movements for women's rights throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, including movements for suffrage and reproductive rights.


Women's Magazine Archive

Full-Text
Coverage: 1885-2005

Archive containing cover-to-cover, color issues of 11 of the leading women's interest magazines from the 19th century through the 21st: Better Homes and Gardens, Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents, Redbook, Seventeen, WIN News, and Women's Day.


World's Fairs: A Global History of Expositions

Full-Text
Coverage: 1851-2015
Collection of official records, monographs, publicity, artwork, and artifacts, and more covering all the World's Fairs from Crystal Palace 1851 to Montreal 1967, plus other exhibitions and expos through to the modern day.